


Cats with Funny Names

by Overlord_Bethany



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Gen, feline POV, not sure how long this will go on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 14:10:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19395763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Overlord_Bethany/pseuds/Overlord_Bethany
Summary: Sometimes it becomes necessary to impose companionship upon another person.





	Cats with Funny Names

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what I'm doing. Life is weird.

Mr. Sprinkles had lowered his expectations.

For most of his life, he had reigned supreme over a comfortable little flat with a comfortable little family. The windows never fit quite right and the kitchen tap dripped, both of which Mr. Sprinkles considered pleasant features. He had had kibble and pâté and catnip and sisal posts aplenty. Then one day the family had begun fussing about some atrocity called a New Job. In short order, Mr. Sprinkles had landed here.

Where was here, precisely? So far as Mr. Sprinkles was concerned, here mostly consisted of a space he could cross in four strides. It had one litterbox, two catnip toys, one cardboard scratcher, and worst of all, a single bed. Food and water cups affixed to a metal grate, and the menu consisted entirely of kibble. He had snubbed the kibble at first, until The Vet took him and removed one of his teeth. True, the tooth had given him a spot of trouble in the past, but Mr. Sprinkles objected to its absence all the same.

Mr. Sprinkles sat quite near a place called The Desk, and from his position he could hear others going through a process called Adoption. At first he had wanted nothing to do with any of the operations of this place. Then he had begun to long for Adoption to happen to him, if only for a break from the monotony. These days, he mostly hoped for a two-legger to stick a finger through the grate and give his ears a friendly scratch.

One afternoon, when Mr. Sprinkles had just begun to think about his supper of boring kibble, he heard a voice from over near The Desk. The owner of this voice broke protocol. Instead of meandering through the halls, peering into grates and cooing over the inhabitants, this fellow seemed to have marched right up to The Desk and made a demand:

“I’ll take the oldest beastie you’ve got.”

Mr. Sprinkles perked up a bit. The tall-cat called Dad used to say something like that about him. Magnificent old beastie. Mum had used a different B-word, but she meant it the same. More two-legger conversation followed, and Mr. Sprinkles lost interest. He had just settled down for a tiny little nap when the Desk Person came right over with a set of keys.

This was most irregular.

In short order, Mr. Sprinkles found himself stuffed into a cardboard crate and carried to The Desk itself. The two-legger there never looked inside, nor even stuck a fingertip through one of the holes. He smelled odd, a little like the reptile room nearby. Did this person keep snakes and lizards? Mr. Sprinkles wasn’t certain how he felt about that sort of two-legger.

“Oh, no,” the stranger was saying. “No, he’s for a friend.”

Something about the word _friend_ put Mr. Sprinkles in mind of how he’d had a comfortably antagonistic association with the dachshund from across the street. He wondered at it, but only for a minute or so. With admirable efficiency, the stranger counted money onto the desk, signed a paper, and picked up the crate.

Mr. Sprinkles was Adopted.

The stranger picked up the cardboard crate. He walked with an uncomfortable swinging gait, and Mr. Sprinkles flattened himself to the floor of the little box. He drew breath to protest when a gust of The Outdoors assaulted his nose. Traffic sounds filled his good ear for a moment, and then his crate jostled to a stop. A car door slammed. Mr. Sprinkles hated riding in cars.

“Mind yourself in there,” said the stranger. The engine turned over, and a blast of music filled the tight quarters of the vehicle. With a lurch, they were on their way.

Mr. Sprinkles had mostly ridden in automobiles for the purpose of traveling to and from The Vet, and therefore he cared for it not at all. The music was alright, though. It was a song Mum liked. To calm his nerves, Mr. Sprinkles sang along.

“You’re no Freddie Mercury,” the stranger said flatly. Mr. Sprinkles ignored him and sang until the engine shut off again.

The stranger snatched the cardboard crate from where it rested at last. The door slammed, and with an uncomfortably jaunty swing to his stride, the stranger carried Mr. Sprinkles a few short steps. Then he stopped, rang a bell, and opened a door.

“We’re closed!” called a voice from a room or two away.

“Of course you’re closed. I read the sign.” The stranger set the crate down on the floor and opened the top. “I’ve brought you something.”

A long pause hovered between the two-leggers, rather like cats circling one another, uncertain of territory, unconvinced of whether or not they wanted to fight. Mr. Sprinkles hunched down lower in the cardboard crate. Then the voice from within spoke again, nearer this time.

“Why in the world would you—What is that?” His voice had gone from lyrical question to cold objection. Mr. Sprinkles sat up, suddenly all defiance. What he saw surprised him.

The two-leggers stood facing one another, still unsure of a fight. That wasn’t so strange. But these two? These two looked different from any creatures Mr. Sprinkles had ever seen. Not different in any physical sense, as they both sported the usual shape of all two-leggers, tall-cats and otherwise. No, they looked… off. Off, in the sense that one of them gave a subtle light, like sunshine filtered through a soft curtain, and the other seemed cloaked in shadow despite the light.

Or perhaps Mr. Sprinkles was simply seeing things. He did have a spot of cataracts, after all.

“I don’t want a cat,” said the bright one.

“Of course you do,” said the shadowy one, talking quickly. “Bookshop cats are a thing these days. Think of it, angel. People come in and pay attention to the cat. They don’t pay attention to the books.”

“I don’t know,” hedged the bright one. “Cats are dreadfully destructive.”

“So are angels,” muttered the shadowy one.

“What was that?”

Mr. Sprinkles stretched from the tips of his toes to the high arch of his spine, then hopped out of the crate. Flicking the tip of his tail, he ambled over to sniff around the base of a shelf. Nothing but shoes had passed by here in a very long while. He leaned back, peering up at higher shelves. Books. All books.

“Just give him a chance. Does he look destructive to you?”

Maybe in his younger days, when his hip didn’t click with almost every stride. It ached in the cold and damp, and the cold and damp happened rather more often than he would like. Mr. Sprinkles sat and yawned.

“Not particularly,” Angel conceded. He pursed his lips in that funny way two-leggers do. “Their little lives are so brief. Just enough time to get attached.”

“Not this one!” crowed the other in triumph. “This one’s fifteen already. Blink and you’ll miss him.”

They stared one another down, a silent conversation in a language Mr. Sprinkles almost knew. Then, with a sigh, Angel relented.

“I can look after him for a bit, my dear, but I really don’t think you thought this through. Cats need _things_. Food. Litter. A place to sleep.”

“There are lots of places to sleep,” My Dear insisted, and Mr. Sprinkles agreed. “Look, there he goes now,” he added as Mr. Sprinkles found a chair to master. It had a nice cushion that smelled pleasantly of trousers.

“Yes, I see that.”

My Dear reached out and gave Mr. Sprinkles a firm pat on the head. “I can see about the food, I suppose.”

Don’t sound so enthusiastic. Mr. Sprinkles tucked his paws out of sight beneath him. His tail thumped the cushion a few times before settling into position. Loaf, Mum used to say. Mr. Sprinkles had no idea what a loaf was.

My Dear and Angel exchanged a few more words, and then My Dear turned and sauntered back out the front door. Mr. Sprinkles looked up at Angel and squeezed his eyes shut very slowly, putting as much goodwill as he could muster into the gesture. Still gazing after My Dear, Angel failed to notice. In fact, Angel failed to notice Mr. Sprinkles at all for long enough for Mr. Sprinkles to fall rather soundly asleep.

It was an improvement over his previous situation. Probably.


End file.
